A walk to Georgia Tech’s Bobby Dodd Stadium reveals fraternity houses with couches in the yard, dormitories with spray-painted sheets, and a university filled with knowledge-hungry students even on football Saturday. Pass by buildings etc. (This is Georgia Tech, after all.) Sure, you need to be light on your feet. The sidewalks are often cracked, there are empty beer cans everywhere, and there are always random chicken wing bones to avoid. (This is Atlanta, after all.) But once you arrive in the 100-year-old concrete behemoth, you’re in the full college football mood. And if it’s the last Saturday in November, you’re full of clean old-fashioned hate.
By contrast, the road to Mercedes-Benz Stadium near Atlanta is wide and clean, thoughtfully designed and well-executed, with sidewalks that aren’t dirty enough to eat chicken wings. You will never see chicken wings. Of course, there’s the tastefully planned and tightly controlled tailgating zone, sponsored by an Atlanta-based home improvement company, where the whole experience is akin to stepping into a cathedral, with its grandeur. It’s almost overwhelming.
Next year, Mercedes-Benz will host the annual Georgia-Georgia Tech rivalry, “Clean Old Fashioned Hate,” but half of the Georgia Tech-hosted rivalries will not be played at Bobby Dodd. This is the first time since 1912. This is the latest example of college football becoming increasingly NFL-ified, but unfortunately, it’s also entirely understandable given the new economic realities of the college game. In the words of Georgia Tech athletic director J. Butt, playing rival teams in NFL stadiums would be “revenue transformational.” And in the wild new world of college football, tradition is cake and profits are huge.
Authentic old-fashioned stadiums, even renovated ones, are not as aesthetically pleasing as modern creations. Aluminum benches aren’t as welcoming to alumni butts as cushioned club chairs. The Saturday afternoon sun is much more tolerable in the air-conditioned monolith than in the concrete bleachers. Parking is a nightmare and traffic jams are apocalyptic at “The Walking Dead” levels. Good luck getting a post-game snack in a college town.
But so what? Spend an afternoon playing Iron Bowl, The Game, Egg Bowl, Clean Old Fashioned Hate, or any of the 100 other games and you’ll understand it on a rudimentary level. The sun is a little brighter, the popcorn and hot dogs taste a little better, and the bands at the college stadium can be heard a lot better.
At rivalry games, alumni can point to the area of the stadium where they sat during their student days. Current students will be able to reunite with high school friends who chose the opposition. Friends, colleagues, and customers gather in tents and tailgates before and after the game, and when everyone takes sides, everyone wins.
The fact that Mercedes-Benz is one of the best stadiums in the world and an exceptional environment for big-class football is indisputable. It hosted one Super Bowl, a snoozer game between the Patriots and Rams in 2019, but that’s not the stadium’s fault. The Super Bowl is also scheduled to be held in 2028. It is the famous venue where Alabama defeated Georgia to win its second and 26th national title in 2018, and will continue to do so in the future. Host this season’s college football title game. Each year, MBS hosts the SEC Championship, Chick-fil-A Kickoff Classic, Peach Bowl, and at least one Georgia Tech home game, including this year’s Notre Dame game on Saturday.
All of these games are spectacular and often transcendent experiences. And none of it is a game of rivalry, steeped in glorious, messy, transcendental tradition.
Georgia State and Georgia Tech have been playing longer than there was a single person alive on the planet when this series began. Granted, the series hasn’t always been competitive as of late, with Georgia winning the last six and 12 of the last 14 games, but the rivalry is about more than just the results on the field. (Georgia Tech fans have plenty of jokes to work with. “What do Georgia Tech alumni call Georgia Tech alumni? ‘Boss'” is the only joke we can print) ) The Kirby Smart era at the University of Georgia changed the world dramatically. The conflict is firmly heading east, in the direction of Athens.
That’s partly behind Georgia Tech’s decision to move the game. AMB Sports Enterprises, an affiliate of Falcons owner Arthur Blank, will pay Georgia Tech $10 million just for one rivalry game at Mercedes-Benz Stadium. 10 million per game is a hell of a paycheck to move a game a mile south. There are probably countless athletic directors who would turn down that deal.
In an open letter to Georgia Tech fans, Butt addressed the challenges Georgia Tech faces as it attempts to return to national championship-level ways, starting with the financial realities of an impending House settlement over student-athlete compensation. We have outlined the costs involved.
“In order to compete for championships at the highest level in the post-House era, athletics programs must make an additional financial investment of at least $20 million to $22 million per year to maximize student-athlete revenue sharing. “This is essential to compete with our industry peers,” Butt wrote. “At the same time, the annual distribution we receive from ACC will be reduced by approximately $1 million, which will be applied to our share of the $3 billion in back damages.”
Suddenly, paying a $10 million check to play a single game made a lot more sense economically, if not historically. It no longer matters whether you see revenue sharing as long overdue or a betrayal of the spirit of college football. Either way, the bill is due.
In a letter to Yellow Jackets fans, Butt promised to return the Georgia game to Bobby Dodd in 2029, 2031 and, if not later, 2027. Perhaps it was an oversight, or perhaps it was just a matter of keeping options open for future transformative revenue growth. In the world of college football, nothing is unexpected at this point.
The 2025 Georgia vs. Georgia Tech game will be another exciting one on the field, and it will light up pregame message boards, podcasts, and sports talk radio as well. But when we start monetizing nostalgia and turning tradition into a commodity, something indescribable but essential is lost. “Terile, climate-controlled hatred” doesn’t seem quite appropriate, does it?
